


Lose My Mind

by Gellsbells



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a kinda happy ending, F/M, Gift Exchange, Lose My Mind - Dean Lewis, Serpent!Jughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 00:24:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13088562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gellsbells/pseuds/Gellsbells
Summary: Canon - Divergent. After taking Penny to Greendale Jughead cannot get the night out of his head, instead calling forth his memories of the Hitchcock Blonde who he pushed away.





	Lose My Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aisfor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisfor/gifts).



> Written for the Riverdale 2017 Gift Exchange for Aisfor. Based on the prompt Lose My Mind - Dean Lewis. 
> 
> This takes place after the Serpents and Jughead take Penny to Greendale.

Lose My Mind. 

> _'Cause I only lose my mind when I ain't got you_
> 
> _And how I can win when I'm always bound to lose_
> 
> _Oh, when I ain't got you_
> 
> _No-no, I ain't got you_

Jughead closes his eyes and begs for sleep to finally take him. He had appeared confident and sure of himself in front of the Serpents as he cut the tattoo from Penny's skin. Her screams filling the darkness around them and despite her  struggling he had removed her mark, along with it her protection. Leaving her to cower and sob, cradling her injured arm in a secluded location in Greendale.

The others had slapped him on the back, congratulated him, saying that he was a true Serpent now. There was no doubt to his loyalty now. He had become one of them. On the ride back down to Riverdale he had hung back, pulling over on the side of the road and ran to the ditch. He leant over bracing himself against his knees as he violently emptied the contents of his stomach into the ditch. No longer needing to keep up the facade that he was okay with what he had just done. He had wiped his mouth with the back of his hand the taste of bile still lingering on his tongue, before he got back on his bike and continued the journey home.

He turns over in his bed again, pushing aside the memories of night as they try to creep back in. The need to escape from them, from his life is overwhelming. The continuing downward spiral which has become his reality. As he tosses and turns, the sheets wrap around his body, pulling tighter and tighter as he continues to move. He feels He sighs as he opens his eyes, and rips the sheet from around his body, finally escaping it’s grasp. He rolls back onto his back dropping his head to the side towards the empty pillow at his side.  

The pillow where a few weeks ago she had lain her head, her blonde tresses fanned out like a perfect halo around her head in stark contrast to the deep blue of his pillowcase. Where he had pressed his lips against her forehead, and mumbled he loved her into her ear, as her hands ghosted over his shoulders.

If he closes his eyes, presses his face against the pillow and breathes in, he can almost imagine she is there with him. His face buried in the crook of her neck as she whispers his name 'Juggie'. Her body solid against his own. He could lose himself in these thoughts of her. Until the unwelcome screams of Penny Peabody crash into his fantasy, his eyes snapping open as they continue to ring in his ears. His breathing becoming rapid as the walls close in around him. He stumbles to the bathroom  he shares now with his returned father and tries to avoid his own gaze in the mirror as he splashes water over his face. He braces his hands against the mirror, trying to slow down his breathing. He feels like he is losing it. Without her to pull him out he has fallen so far down the rabbit hole.

He moves quietly back to his room, careful not to make a noise until he sees that his dad’s bedroom’s door is wide open with no-one inside. He tries not to let his imagination run away with him with thoughts of what his father might be doing for the Serpents. What he forced him back into. He runs his hand through his hair tugging on the strands, feeling the sting on his scalp as he sits back on his bed. “Fuck.” He buries his head in his hands. It is such a mess, everything and he can’t see a way out.

Jughead looks up and his eyes catch the typewriter sitting on his desk. He hasn’t typed a single letter on it.

He pushes himself off the bed to wander over to the typewriter that he had unwrapped early. He had never been a good boy for waiting until Christmas morning to open his presents and he couldn’t help himself.

He runs his fingers over the keys. He imagines Betty finding it in the store. The way her face would light up at the discovery, the bounce in her step, the sway of her ponytail as she gleefully stepped up to the cashier with the prize in her hands.

The perfect gift.

Until he had ruined it. Pushing her away again, for her own protection but also because he couldn’t let her see the person he was becoming. He couldn’t bare to face her judgement as he repeated his father’s mistakes. Feeling the ridges and indentations under the pads of his fingertips. He hadn’t been able to use it, not without inviting thoughts of her into his mind. Thoughts that would tempt him to pick up the phone. To tell her that he had made a mistake, that she needed to forgive him.

A knock on the trailer door startles him and he snaps his hand away from the keys. His mind racing as to who could be at the door. The Serpents with another job for him. The police with an injured Penny in the back of a police car. Or Penny herself, holding her injured arm still screaming back for revenge. He takes a deep breath, turning away from the typewriter and moving the door.

He swings open the door to see Betty Cooper standing there. His first instinct is to reach out and touch her just to make sure that she is still real, that she isn’t another one of his apparitions conjured by his own mind to torture him.

“Jug.” she lets out and he can see the relief in her face.

He needs to turn her away he needs to tell her to go.

“He’s gone.” she tells him, and for a moment he’s not sure who she is talking about. “The Black Hood. Sheriff Keller shot him.”

“You shouldn’t be here.” he says, but he moves away from the doorway anyway, letting her come in from the cold.

“I needed to talk to someone. Someone who might understand.” He shuts the door behind him and leans up against the door. Her hands are twisting together in an effort to not clench up. She is also shaking  and he suspects that it’s not from the cold. He moves towards her placing his hand on her shoulder stilling her, as he has a million times before. His hand moving from her shoulder to her arm, moving slowly up and down. The material is damp underneath his fingers and he realises that it must be raining. “Your coat.”

She looks up at him through her eyelashes and he can feel his resolve slipping. Her hands move to the belt of her coat undoing the knot, before she moves to undo the buttons. He is struck by a sense of deja vu, of the night that he was brave enough to tell her that he loved her. He should have known that things were too good to be true. That nothing ever worked out for the Jones men.

He pushes the coat down her shoulders as she watches him carefully. He takes the coat from her placing it on the chair next to them as she is still standing there. She looks so small now without the weight of her coat surrounding her. She looks tired and he can see the glossiness of her eyes and the unshed tears behind them.

Jughead can’t resist any longer as he pulls her to him. His arms wrapping around her as she starts to sob into his chest. He feels her body heaving with her cries and her hand grips onto the material of his t-shirt.

Through her heaved sobs and strangled voice she recounts the night’s events. The call from the Black Hood, the chase and the eventual demise of the hooded man who had been terrorising Riverdale, had been terrorising Betty for the last few months. His hand finds it’s way to her hair, sweeping gently down in a motion that seems to calm her.

“I thought he was going to kill me, Jug. I thought he was going to kill Archie.” She says through her tears and Jughead tries to push aside the pang of jealousy that runs through him at the mention of his best friend’s name.

The looks shared between the two at the Secret Santa gift exchange did not go unnoticed by Jughead. The smiles at each other. The sharing of their childhood past. Their past where Betty was in love with Archie Andrews. Before Jughead arrived as a complication to the perfect plan. But then he had reminded himself that he had no right, no claim to Betty’s feelings. That she should move on. That she should be with someone who deserves her. Someone who can protect her.

“I’m sorry, Betts.” he murmurs into her hair. His hand now rubbing up and down her back as he continues to hold her.

“I just,” she pauses as if considering her words, “Can just pretend that everything is okay? Just for tonight?” He pauses his actions considering her words. A better man would tell her no, gently, would bundle her up in his father’s truck and take her home to her family. To somewhere safe, away from him. 

> _Oh, now you're looking at me, and I'm looking at you like a fool_
> 
> _But, you don't know what it feels like to fall in love with you_
> 
> _No, you don't know what it's like when you can't go back_

But, it turns out Jughead Jones isn’t a better man, as he bends his head as his lips seek out hers, pulling her closer. She’s still under his movements until she she sighs into the kiss and her lips are moving against his own. He wants to be soft, gentle. Like that night at Pop’s after the birthday party disaster. But there is an urgency in his kiss that she responds to all too eagerly as he feels the coolness of her hand slipping underneath his shirt tracing along the heat of his skin. He has missed her touch, the feel of her lips, he has missed her all too much to say no.

* * *

 

Jughead stirs as the sunlight hits his face, closing his eyes tighter against the intrusion. For the first time in weeks he feels at peace.

His mind drifts back to Betty without him meaning to, unable to keep her memory at bay. He keeps his eyes closed imagining her breathing next to him, the weight of her head laying on his chest, a leg thrown over his hips. If he keeps his eyes closed he can lose himself in this memory. In the memory of her.

He can almost hear her voice as she whispers, "Juggie." He doesn't want to open his eyes, doesn't want to wake from this dream. "Juggie." He hears again as the weight shifts against him and his eyes open slowly to find her own bright green eyes looking up at him.  His memory or imagination could never do justice to the real thing. She isn’t a fantasy or a dream conjured by his mind as a failed attempt to bring him peace. She’s real, she’s there with him.

"Betty." Her hand is moving slowly against his chest and he knows that that he should shift away. He needs to push her away again. Get her away from this life, away from him.

"I love you. Juggie"

He should move, he should leave, tell her that he made a mistake. He wonders how hard he would need to push to keep her away. To keep himself away from her. He doesn't want to lose her. She’s his anchor that keeps him grounded. But he doesn't want to lose her in his world of drug deals, gauntlets and snake dances. He doesn't want to see the good parts of Betty Cooper give way to the darkness inside her that is bubbling away always just underneath the surface just like his own. The dance she performed in the Whyte Wyrm still gives him a sinking feeling in the pit in his stomach. The thought of her with a Serpents jacket over her shoulders makes him feel guilty. He doesn’t want her anywhere near this world. Doesn’t want her to see the person he is becoming. For her to look at him the way his mum would look at his dad. But he needs her.

> _And you say goodbye, and you say goodbye_
> 
> _And you say goodbye_

He should tell her goodbye, one final time. But maybe he's just too selfish because instead-

"I love you too, Betts."


End file.
